Democrats already looking for the right woman for 2016

The lock men have held on the White House could be broken in 2016. | AP Photo

“Sometimes, it seems to me, it is difficult to want what you can’t imagine,” said Lewis, who said that until Clinton “began speaking knowledgeably, effectively, some would say presidentially, but forcefully as a leader on national issues, we had no image in our minds of what a woman president could be. We are in a different place.”

Anxiety among Democrats has ticked up in recent weeks because of Clinton’s hospitalization for a blood clot near her brain. Clinton’s physicians have said she will make a full recovery and should be back at work this week. But the medical scare has forced some in the party to take more seriously Clinton’s statements that she doesn’t plan to subject herself to another campaign.

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Privately, Democratic strategists acknowledge that if Clinton chooses not run, the list of women who could plausibly run for president next time is relatively short. Several top Democrats mentioned Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York as potential candidates. Many liberal Democrats would like to see Warren run, but she has emphatically ruled out a campaign only a few years into her first Senate term.

What’s more, the 2014 cycle has the potential to vault more than a few Democratic women onto the national stage. National Democrats pointed to female attorneys general in California, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Illinois as potential breakout stars, as well as Rhode Island Treasurer Gina Raimondo.

But in 2013, there will be only one female Democratic governor: Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, elected to her first term in November. The Granite State — which plays a critical role in choosing presidential nominees — made history in 2012 by electing an all-female House and Senate delegation, as well as Hassan and a female speaker of the state House of Representatives.

Against that backdrop, it could look simply anachronistic for a Democratic nomination fight to play out between, say, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Republicans, on the other hand, have several prominent female governors who could theoretically run for president if they’re reelected in 2014, including New Mexico’s Susana Martinez and South Carolina’s Nikki Haley. New Hampshire Sen. Kelley Ayotte is viewed as a potential national candidate, too.

But unlike Democrats — who have a relatively thin roster of 2016 candidates of either gender — Republicans also have a glut of male talent at the front of the line for the race. If Martinez and Haley are potentially appealing candidates, so are a football team’s worth of men from governor’s mansions and the Senate. There is no figure in the GOP who could clear the field, as Clinton might be able to do on the Democratic side.

And as much as Republicans consider it an urgent priority to win over female voters, there’s also some ambivalence in the GOP about breaking a gender barrier for its own sake.

“We have great women, especially in the House … and states, but they would have to be great conservatives [and] communicators first,” said GOP presidential strategist Mary Matalin. “I would be offended by a gender candidacy over a philosophically committed one — would be inspired by a woman on the ticket, but not if she was a squish.”

Matalin attributed the rumbling among Democrats about the need to nominate a woman to a combination of deferred loyalty for Clinton (“she would have to give her blessing at a minimum,” Matalin said), as well as admiration for Nancy Pelosi’s leadership in the House and “ongoing resentment of the female-free Obama White House.”